AED expands presence in SE Asia

AED Oil is expanding its presence in South East Asia, after buying stakes in two gas tenements from Canada’s Nations Petroleum for about $8.6 million.

Melbourne-based AED will own 100 per cent of the Rombebai contract area in northern coastal Papua, the company said on Friday.

It said four wells were drilled in an area between 1956 and 1958 with positive results.

AED will also hold a 60 per cent stake in the South Madura contract area, on Indonesia’s Madura island.

The transactions will cost AED $US1.5 million ($1.73 million) plus 12 million of its shares, valued at 57¢ at the time the deal was signed.

AED stopped producing at its Puffin field, 700km west of Darwin in the Timor Sea, last year to allow further studies of the site and now has no producing energy assets.

Company chief financial officer
Richard Little
said the business always intended to invest in South-East Asia, and the new purchases complemented its Brunei oil and gas play bought from Nations Petroleum late last year.

“They [Nations] were focusing more on their US-type assets, and that is how we were able to get the opportunity," Mr Little said of the new tenements.